David M. Buss Quotes

“Emotional support is yet another facet of commitment, revealed by behavior such as being available in times of trouble and listening to the partner’s problems.”

“Evolutionary psychology focuses on four key questions:

1. Why is the mind designed the way it is — that is, what causal processes created, fashioned, or shaped the human mind into its current form?

2. How is the human mind designed — what are its mechanisms or component parts, and how are they organized?

3. What are the functions of the component parts and their organized structure — that is, what is the mind designed to do?

4. How does input from the current environment interact with the design of the human mind to produce observable behavior?”

“From an ancestral woman's perspective, hazards from the environment, other species, and importantly, other humans, could render her mate debilitated or dead.

A bite from a poisonous snake, an incapacitating disease, or an attack from a warring group could decrease her partner's mate value.”

“Killing is fundamentally in our nature because over the eons of human evolution murder was so surprisingly beneficial in the intense game of reproductive competition.”

“Monogamy is probably enforced because society is mostly comprised of beta males.”

“My hunch is that people have these low-level assessment mechanisms going on all the time. So they meet someone new and question whether they, as an alternative, would be more attractive than their existing partner.”

“My Nigerian colleague wished to know whether I sought mate preferences for a man’s first wife, second wife, or third wife.”

“My work and other people’s work has demonstrated that women place a high preference on guys who have high status and resources.”

“On average, men find women more attractive than women find men.”

“Studies also have found that men tend to prefer women younger than themselves and, as they grow older, their preferred age gap increases.

Men in this situation tend to commit 'mind-reading errors' finding it unfathomable that the woman is not also attracted to them.”

“The huge human brain, approximately 1,350 cubic centimeters, is the most complex organic structure in the known world.

Understanding the human mind/brain mechanisms in evolutionary perspective is the goal of the new scientific discipline called evolutionary psychology.”

“There can be no autonomous agent with unitary interests called 'society' that exerts causal influence. This is a logical impossibility.”

“We have to understand our evolved coalitional psychology to make sense of what's going on today.”

“When you get to sexual violence, it is the case that men are primarily the perpetrators, and women are primarily the victims.”

“Women who are too easy to attract are perceived as less desirable.”

“Darwin had a wonderful scientific habit of noticing facts that seemed inconsistent with his theories.”

“In a fascinating study, Barrett (1999) demonstrated that children as young as three years of age have a sophisticated cognitive understanding of predator-prey encounters.

Children from both an industrialized culture and a traditional hunter-horticulturalist culture were able to spontaneously describe the flow of events in a predator-prey encounter in an ecologically accurate way.

Moreover, they understood that after a lion kills a prey, the prey is no longer alive, can no longer eat, and can no longer run and that the dead state is permanent.

This sophisticated understanding of death from encounters with predators appears to be developed by age three to four.”

“Men in the past who were indifferent to their partners having sex with other men are not our evolutionary ancestors.”

“A man at the apprenticeship stage of a promising career may pursue only brief affairs, figuring that he will be able to attract a more desirable long-term mate later on, when his career is closer to its peak.”

“A study by T. Joel Wade and Jennifer Slemp similarly found that the most effective flirtation tactics for women include touching, dressing in revealing clothing, moving closer, kissing on the cheek, and rubbing against the man.”

“Although most men place a premium on beauty, it is clear that not all men succeed in satisfying their desires. Men who lack the status and resources that women want, for example, generally have the most difficult time attracting good looking, young women and must settle for less than their ideal.

Indeed, a man's occupational status seems to be the best predictor of the attractiveness of the woman he marries. Men who are in a position to get what they want often partner up with a young, attractive woman.”

“Among all the tactics to elevate their position in status hierarchies, industriousness proved to be the best predictor of past and anticipated income and promotions.

Those who worked harder achieved higher levels of education and higher annual salaries, and they anticipated greater salaries and promotions than those who failed to work hard.”

“As a man's income goes up, he seeks younger partners.”

“As women age, husbands show less sexual interest in them and experience less happiness with their sexual relationship. Men who perceive their wives as quite attractive, however, maintain high frequencies of sex and higher levels of sexual satisfaction.”

“At this point in history, we can no longer doubt that men and women differ in their preferences for a mate: primarily for youth and physical attractiveness in one case, and for status, maturity, success, protection, and economic resources in the other.

Men and women also differ in their proclivities for casual sex without emotional involvement, in their desire for sexual variety, and in the nature of their sexual fantasies.”

“Because ancestral women valued high status in men, for example, men have evolved motivation for acquiring and displaying status. Because ancestral men desired youth and health in potential mates, women have evolved motivations to appear young and healthful.

Competition to attract a mate therefore involves besting one’s rivals in developing and displaying the characteristics most keenly sought by one’s desired partners.”

“Because firm, youthful breasts stimulate men’s desires, women obtain breast implants and wear push-up bras.”

“Because flushed cheeks and high color are cues that men use to gauge a woman’s health, women rouge their cheeks artificially to trigger men’s attraction.”

“Because full red lips trigger men’s evolved desires, women apply lipstick skillfully and even get injections to enlarge their lips for the 'bee-stung' look.”

“Because lustrous hair is one of men’s evolved desires, women highlight, bleach, tint, or dye their hair, and they give it extra body with conditioners, egg yolks, beer, or weaves.”